WOMAN CRUSH WEDNESDAY: RITA ORJI.
“Over the past few decades, great progress has been made in encouraging and supporting women who wish to pursue careers in STEM, but despite these advances, significant barriers still exist,”
Rita Orji is a Nigerian-Canadian computer scientist and human-computer interaction researcher. She is an assistant professor of computer science at Dalhousie University in Canada.
She works on human–computer interaction and how technological interventions can impact health and wellbeing.
Rita has awards from Nigerian and Canadian organisations. She has addressed a United Nations panel about the status of women and at the Parliament of Canada.
Rita Orji grew up in Enugu State Nigeria, where she did not have access to a computer. At the age of 13, she entered the Nigerian team for the International Mathematical Olympiad. Orji studied computer science at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, graduating top of her class.
In 2002 she launched Education for Women and the Less Privileged in Nigeria, a nonprofit organisation which provides mentorship and scholarships for women in education.
She joined a master’s program at Middle East Technical University, where she was the only black student. She completed her master’s in 2009 and moved to Canada as a graduate student.
In 2012, she presented at the Parliament of Canada, where she spoke about health promotion and disease prevention. Rita was awarded a Vanier scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and earned her Ph.D. at University of Saskatchewan in 2014.
She was the first woman from her town of 50,000 people to earn a Ph.D. She joined McGill University as a postdoctoral fellow, where she worked on technological interventions that can effect behavioural change.
Rita Orji joined the Games Institute at the University of Waterloo. She is interested in gamification and how to design technologies that can promote health and wellness.
She joined the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University as a Banting Fellow in July 2017. She designs interactive systems and persuasive technologies, particularly to benefit under-served populations.
She has studied how culture and age influence the efficacy of persuasive technologies. She analysed how reward, competition, social comparison and social learning differ between men and women in collectivist and individualist cultures, finding that in collectivist cultures men are more susceptible to reward and competition.
“Equality is not about men, it’s also not about women; it’s about providing a nurturing environment where people of diverse traits can maximize their potential.”
Rita Orji is quite passionate about youth empowerment and women’s access to education. She is a loud voice in advocating for gender equality in STEM.
She was honoured by hEr VOLUTION as one of the top 150 women scientists in Canada. She attended the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York City.She spoke at the 2018 United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW62) Panel: It is Up to Me.
SOME OF HER NOTABLE AWARDS
• 2013 University of Saskatchewan Research Excellence in Science Award[18]
• 2017 Enugu State Award of Excellence in Recognition of in Recognition of Scholarly Achievement and Contributions to Advancement of Education[19]
• 2017 Nnamdi Azikiwe University Award of Excellence in Recognition of Contribution for the Advancement of Knowledge in Computer Science[17]
• 2017 Top 150 Canadian Women in Science[20]
and many more.
You can find her on social media:
Twitter: @ritapurity
LinkedIn: Rita Orji
ABOUT US
WIE-UISB stands for Women in Engineering, University of Ibadan Students Branch. A community dedicated to empowering ladies in Engineering and other STEM fields.
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